


see what's become of me

by aluinihi



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, Not Beta Read, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-31 23:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20803886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aluinihi/pseuds/aluinihi
Summary: He stood there, leaning against the kitchen counter with his eyes begging the clock to spin as fast as it could.russian translation





	see what's become of me

**Author's Note:**

> Occasionally, I write. Hope you like it!

_Tick-tock_, said the clock hanging from the kitchen wall. _Tick-tock, tick-tock._

Time, doesn’t matter how much it expands, it seems to be a restriction. Roy stared at the hands, those stupid little sticks that kept turning and turning and never giving anyone a break, and sighed. He didn’t want to stop it, no, he didn’t think he was qualified to do so; instead, maybe it could go faster.

He looked at the boy napping on the couch in the next room. Then back at the clock. And frowned.

There were no excuses, no punishments, no time-skipping travels that could free him from the choices he had made. The past stays in the past, and it’s _past_ in and of itself, and even though the future lay billions of clock-hands-turnings away from Roy it still sounded like a better, more steady solution than going back and meddling. If it wasn’t _his_ past, then he wouldn’t be _himself_, and he wasn’t sure he wanted Edward Elric sleeping on someone else’s couch.

He wasn’t even sure if they would have eventually bumped, if Roy wasn’t Roy. If Roy wasn’t Roy, would that mean Ed wouldn’t be Ed just as much? He didn’t want to think of Ed as anyone but himself. What was the precise amount of time one should go back to completely kill who they were?

Roy swallowed dry. The blond head peeked out from the cocoon of blankets Roy had made for him last night, after he had given up gathering the courage to offer him the bed. Would Roy kill himself _like that?_

His heart ached and he didn’t like that. No one likes heartaches, but Roy had that specific fear some people have, the one that was usually enough to keep his heart from aching altogether. But sometimes, and this was the second time it happened to him, fear proves not to be an efficient defense. Fight or flight, but we mustn't forget there is also _freeze_ and Roy was too scared to move away. To move closer. And he was also awfully scared that just standing there was going to get him in more trouble than picking the following course of action, even if all his options made the hairs on his nape stand on end.

Movement on the couch and Roy averted his eyes, back to the clock. Five in the morning. _5 a.m. 5 a.m. 5 a.m. 5 a.m._

“M— Roy…?”

Sixteen. Edward Elric had lived only sixteen _year-hours_ when Roy had almost a day and a half on his shoulders. He didn’t know when they got on a first-name basis, or why did it feel so natural to pick his warmest blankets to protect Ed from the cold, or how Roy managed to avoid turning to him with a bright smile and offering a mug of coffee just how Ed liked.

He stood there, leaning against the kitchen counter with his eyes begging the clock to spin as fast as it could. The minute hand ticked once. And Edward was standing next to him.

“Hey, dumbass,” he called, “what you’re staring at?”

“Time.” He shook his head, letting out a dry laugh at Ed’s scowl. “_‘You can’t stare at time, idiot’_, you’ll tell me. And I’ll say it’s too early for both of us to be awake on a Sunday.”

“Do you have all conversations written in your head like a script or somethin’?”

His hair was down. Messy, blond, and right there for Roy to brush away from his eyes, tuck it behind his ear. He did so because he was doomed to repeat his mistakes over and over and never truly learn from them, and his heart ached because Edward let him. Simple, simple.

“Not really,” he confesses. “You’re just predictable when you’re sleepy. You get meaner, but less creative.”

Edward yawned and stumbled the remaining steps that kept them apart, his arms quickly finding their place around Roy’s waist as his head rested against his shoulder. Roy moved just as naturally, one arm around Ed’s shoulders and a hand sinking in the golden hair to play with it the way Ed had never said he liked. The boy sighed contently, and Roy couldn’t help but feel giddy with relief when he noticed how much of his weight Ed trusted him to hold.

He looked at the clock, but it hadn’t changed much. Roy’s stomach sunk. _Spin, spin, spin_, he prayed, but it was still too early for them to be awake and Ed was still sixteen years old.

“I’m tired,” Ed said, “how can you not be mean at five in the morning?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the coffee.”

Edward pulled back. “You made coffee?”

“Drinking coffee won’t change the fact that you’re awake at this hour on a Sunday, dear.”

“But it could make me less mean, you said it yourself.”

Roy smiled. Even with the turmoil inside him, even if he was walking on such thin, cracking grounds, Edward’s eyes shone bright enough to bring some light to the darkness.

But then Ed scowled again, irritated and, dare Roy say it, hurt.

“You’re smiling like that again.”

“Like what?”

“Like you were thinking about that crap.”

Time. Roy was thinking about time, and what he should do with it. There was something to be changed, and he hoped to change time instead of _them_.

“See, now you have that face when you’re about to _say_ crap.”

Roy sighed. “Edward—”

“_No_.” He detangled himself from Roy’s arms and stomped to the kitchen cabinet to grab a mug. Edward seemed to cope with his frustrations by turning to those concrete things like drinking coffee aggressively. “You’re always talking in circles, you think you do that only to other people but you do that to yourself too.”

_ “It’s so early,”_ he wanted to reply._ “Let’s not fight.”_

Ed sipped his drink from across the room, glaring at Roy before continuing. “I’m so tired of you looking at me as if— _you know_. It’s annoying. You think that this won’t work and you tell yourself that and you create that maze of _talking_ that never lets you do anything.”

“And what do you want me to do, then?”

“_Nothing._”

“Edward, we are—”

“If we are not going to work then we are not going to work _when_ we are supposed to not work,” he said, in a tone that left no space for further discussion. “If being with you is going to fuck me up, then yeah tough shit, but let it fuck me up with something other than your self-sacri—”

Roy frowned. “Than my…?”

Edward stared into his mug as if the dark brown liquid could tell him some important life advice, and he looked so concentrated that Roy almost asked him what it was whispering to him. Maybe it could be helpful.

“Nothing,” he finally said. “I’m tired and Al must be worried, I’m going back to the dorms.”

And Roy couldn’t do much apart from letting him, Ed’s explanations were too good to counteract with his premade excuses. _I missed you, please stay a bit longer_ was nothing, Roy knew his place very well on the chain of Edward Elric’s priorities. Still, it felt like being stepped on when Ed downed the coffee in light speed and told Roy he could show himself the door.

When he was gone, Roy went back to his mug. It was cold and disgusting and he couldn’t stand to drink it.

_Tick-tock_, said the clock hanging from the kitchen wall, and Roy glared at it truly insulted. _Tick-tock, tick-tock._

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written as much RoyEd as I'd like... got overly invested in a project that was simply too elaborate for me to finish. Got commissioned too. College. In other words, life is messy.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated! And here are [the links](https://aluinihi.carrd.co/).


End file.
